Iran's Drones

Will Saletan writes about politics, science, technology, and other stuff for Slate. He’s the author of Bearing Right.

Iranian military planes doing the same thing.

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Last Thursday,
Danger Room
reported that according to its sources, American planes had
shot down
an Iranian drone in Iraqi airspace. Yesterday, the United States
confirmed
it. We and our friends are no longer the only nations flying remote-controlled vehicles over other countries. Instead of looking down on the enemy through the eyes of unmanned aircraft, our military personnel will increasingly find themselves on the wrong end of the camera—and eventually the missile.

The United States claims that the Iranian drone shot down on Feb. 25 spent
more than an hour
in Iraqi airspace and was "well inside Iraqi territory." Depending on whom you believe, it was
10
,
12
,
25
, or
80
miles inside Iraq. One theory is that the drone was spying on a
camp full of Iranian dissidents
(or, to put it less nicely,
terrorists
). Another is that it was looking for routes to
smuggle weapons
into Iraq. It was unarmed and relatively unsophisticated, with a range of
90 miles
(which means it almost certainly didn't go 80 miles into Iraq) and an altitude limit of 14,000 feet.

The incident raises at least three questions. First: How many other drones does Iran have, and what can they do? According to
Danger Room
:

Iran has been developing unmanned aviation technologies, displaying drone aircraft during military parades and incorporating them into war games along its eastern and western borders in recent years. In December, Iran said it had developed a new generation of "spy drones" that provide real-time surveillance over enemy terrain. And last month an Iranian air force officer told media Iran had created drones with a range of 1,200 miles.

The distance from Iran to Tel Aviv is about 600 miles.

Second: Who else has drones? We know, for example, that
Israel
,
Georgia
, and
Pakistan
have them. Iran's ability to produce them means that Iranian-affiliated miscreants will be deploying them, too. Danger Room
notes
:

Third: How will the proliferation of drones affect future wars? The emerging ability of our adversaries to do to us what we've been doing to them—invade, spy, and eventually
kill
without risking any personnel—is a huge problem. The number of U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan since President Obama took office is now up to
six
, with a casualty count
exceeding 100
. Imagine somebody doing that to us.

On the other hand, nobody died in the Feb. 25 incident. According to the U.S. military, before firing, our forces confirmed that "
no collateral damage would result from a shoot-down
." In fact, we knew more than that. We knew we wouldn't be killing any military personnel, either, since the drone's pilot was in Iran. That made it easier to shoot down the drone without triggering a political confrontation and blowing up
diplomatic efforts
with Iran. It's been three weeks since the incident, and Iran
still hasn't mentioned it
in public. If tomorrow's spy aircraft can be shot down without spilling blood and starting wars, that's not such a bad thing.